Fire Engulfs Me
by The Disturbed Immortal
Summary: The Birth of a prince brings with it many things - joy, jealousy, pride, unity and the likes. Azulon never expected it, the surprise that greeted him upon his return but would he relent in the end and accept the yellow-haired bundle which he was left in charge of, as his own? Fire-Bender Naruto!


**Disclaimer: Hey back again to write another fan fiction, of which the characters, their names and the whole freaking shebang I don't own. **

**This will be a story about many things but family will be a central figure. Prepare yourselves people. You are about to be blown right out of your pants. Figuratively…**

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**Today's words****: Of course prophecies have grown old (cliché), everyone has tired of them but prophecies are different. A prophecy grown old is one which says a child shall fell a dark lord by submitting him to his greatest weakness, oral sex, in all places. Everybody knows that one I believe – The Disturbed Immortal**

**Ha-ha! Welcome all and Enjoy!**

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**Fire Engulfs Me**

**Prologue: Blasphemous! No son of mine is yellow haired!**

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**҉****Fire Nation- Royal Palace**

**(69 AG)**

Fire lord Azulon was a warrior and among many other things a ruler. He had been born and bred in royalty; his blood ran with the genes of the most powerful fire lord to ever grace their great nation, Souzen. He was a man of very few, if not any smiles at all. He rarely expressed emotion, jolly, gaiety, sadness but he was able to show pride when one of his children did something to please him and that something had to be military or to do with their exalted and fierce art of bending. To him power was everything, and thus his heir had to be as powerful and cunning as they could be in order to succeed him. Iroh was his first heir and although a prodigious bender in his own right, and cruel as they came, he often lacked that will of absolute brutality and ruthlessness that his younger sibling Ozai had. However to Azulon, Iroh was regardless a worthy heir and successor to his throne. Both his sons were very distinct characters.

You had Ozai who was a hothead, extremely ambitious, brash and dare he say, brutal. Then there was Iroh, who was very calm, an expert in many subjects and fields and a very well versed individual in the cultures of the four nations. Iroh loved reading more than he did battle, well except his tea however and Ozai just loved trolling around in the Palace as if scheming some horrible plot to take over the throne.

In many ways, Iroh (22) had taken after his mother and Ozai (14), after him. He wondered however, whom his third heir would take after. He had been shocked when Ilah broke the news about her rather abnormal pregnancy to him almost nine months ago, considering he hadn't expected another heir after she had barely managed to successfully deliver Ozai. However she seemed strangely fine with this pregnancy and had finally given birth to yet another heir. After she had fallen pregnant they had expected that she would struggle and she had very nearly miscarried but somehow in some very bizarre twist of fate, she had held on and so did the child, almost as if it was destined to be born. She had for weeks after her conception told him stories of how the fire spirit watched over this one, how she had experienced a vision where she was told that the child would be special and would carry the will, hopes, and dreams of the gods of fire, the one who would change everything and would lead the fire nation to glory. Right now he was barging there, after having called his fleet back and travelling with them to see his son as he had been told his wife had given birth to. He felt giddy and like a young man on steroids, despite his sixty-nine years of life as after all this was the child whom his wife had termed the 'blessed child', the third prince of the fire kingdom.

The avatar had yet to resurface and he knew that with him out of the way, he could complete his father's plan. But for today those thoughts rested at the back of his mind, his face a healthy lot better without the lines of worry and seriousness always marring it. He looked a healthy lot younger as well, his hair and beard grey, but that stubborn air of youth about him. It was in his blood of course…

"My lord, please come this way." A young lady who was one of the midwives requested in a calm, respectful voice and Azulon grunted a response as he followed after her. Her hands were clutching the hem of her red servant outfit while she was wearing a very blank and impassive stare in her eyes. They walked for a while longer along a wide passage lit up with various lanterns and fire lambs, before they soon found themselves standing before a rather royal and finely made door. It was slightly ajar and the young woman fully opened it and turned her stare to the bearded Fire lord, "My lady's birthing went adequately alright. She is with the young prince now and she would like to see you. Is there anything else I could do for you?" She questioned politely to which Azulon merely waved her off before she stepped away allowing the man entry and bowing as she did so.

He pushed past the door as he made his way in calmly. He fixed his stare at the other midwives still parading around and doting at a smiling Ilah with a calm, authoritative stare, "Leave us." He commanded and they bowed before they slowly made less of themselves. Azulon closed the door as he regarded Ilah with a slightly softer stare than the one he usually wore when around his men. She was cuddling a small bundle in her arms whom Azulon guessed had to be their child and a blanket had been wrapped around her figure, all the way to her waists, presumably after her helpers had cleaned her up following the birth. She brought her face up to look at him with eyes dark and sunken with exhaustion and a small twitch of a smile lit up upon her face.

It was not much but it was still enough regardless for him, considering the circumstances surrounding their marriage and how they had wed, he hadn't ever in his life expected that she would ever force herself to accept him. She was what no other woman could afford to become, a survivor. She harboured some feelings for him and him too for her, but unbelievably they had arose years after their marriage. Perhaps out of concern or the children they had together, and thus it was not as awkward as when they first married.

She beckoned for him with her head and he slowly moved toward her. He gazed down at her and the bundle in her arms, remarking the soft features of the baby. His heart soared with happiness and pride at seeing how perfectly healthy the baby was, his roundish cheeks puffing out cutely, his lips pink and shapely. The baby was sleeping soundly and Azulon looked on as Ilah slowly lifted the part of the blanket covering its head. Expecting to be met with the same dark hair common amongst those of his and Souzen's blood, Azulon was clearly shaken when he was met with pure, indisputable yellow hair. Now it was ever so rarely that one got to see Azulon surprised or displaying any ounce of emotion at all and it was quite a sight to Ilah as she saw the man's face morph from happiness to pure shock and then contort into an angered expression as he glared at her, hastily uncovering more of the baby's wrapped form.

Azulon glared at Ilah with a slightly betrayed and enraged stare, "Ilah, what is this. What nonsense is this?"

She smiled earnestly as the man's serious mood seemed lost on her, "This is your son, my love."

"My son? My son?" Azulon exclaimed with his voice rising a few shades deeper as his face contorted more into his anger filled expression, his grey brows mounting into a wide terrifying frown while the place flared into bright light, "This child is…yellow-haired." Those words had choked within his mouth; he did not know how to express the sight of the infant's hair. In his long life, never had he seen a person with stark yellow hair, as bright as the sun. He had seen white but not yellow, not exactly.

They did not even have a name for hair-colour of this kind.

Already the flames lit candles within the room were flaring up, inch by inch almost in sync with the firelord's mood.

However Ilah remained the same, not at all bothered by her husband's flaring anger. "Yes because of what I told you remember," She responded weakly with a low tone of voice, gripping her husband's arm gently she stared at him, "Look at him," she said to which the man just stared into the distance, "Please Azulon, don't shun him, this child is yours. You know as well as I that I would never commit such an atrocity as infidelity." She begged the man through lidded eyes, exhaustion casting a shadow over her visage.

The man persisted but his outer shell had softened somewhat, "His hair. It represents the sun spirit, it will turn dark on the day of the eclipse and when that day strikes, he will lose all his powers. This is what I was told by the Fire Sages. His hair colour was a necessary sacrifice in order to keep him alive my love." She recounted to him, in which she stared straight into his amber eyes, filled with a smothered fire of rage.

"The Fire Sages have already seen him. They spoke of great things." The man relented, bringing the child closer to his ornate yet intimidating red and black robe. "I will not be there to take care of him nor our other children, so please." She pleaded to him, while Azulon firmed his amber eyes on the child, taking every small detail about him. He would make sure that the boy was his, there were other means but if the Sages said he was, he had very little doubt they could not be wrong.

"Promise me to take care of him." She pleaded yet again, the fire lord finding it in himself to merely nod solemnly. He could not bear to look at her, to see her face because he could see, it was clear why she was leaving such daunting a task of taking care of a child, even if he had servants, it was time.

He wished for anything, something to say to the dying woman but his iron pride just could not let him, but he let her know, reaching out and holding her hand and squeezing it comfortably and reassuringly in his own calloused one. His eyes remained the same, now resting on her less fiery amber ones. He stared and stared at her longer, the comfortable yet slightly trembling hold he had on her hand remaining sturdy.

She smiled, words were words, and her husband spoke best through action and she knew. She knew he cared and would do true his promise, the small gesture conveyed his feelings on the matter.

She could finally rest in peace, at last…

"You are free, my dear…" He whispered at last, her eyes blinking him away as darkness engulfed her. And with a smile, a true, beatific smile, she went.

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**҉****Training Chambers**

Ozai stood in the middle of a circle of men wielding weapons. He had his shirt off, his long hair whipping in the air while his face was set in a much focused expression.

A messenger guard clad in the fire nation uniform stalked toward him before they finally came to a stop some respectable distance behind him, their face shrouded by a mask but he could care less. They were all nameless before him, all just loyal dogs capable of speech. "Prince Ozai, lord Azulon requests your presence." The man announced in a professional tone filled with begrudging respect.

Ozai grunted. His father had not even bothered to see him upon his return. All attention was being turned to the brat, his brother. It was like he was rarely visible, for if it wasn't a tale about Iroh's 'oh great deeds' and exploits in the war, it was about foolish prophecies and his now born sibling. It made him sick; how no one ever paid him any heed no more, how even though he was not of a prodigious skill the likes of Iroh, his father of Fire Lord Sozin in Fire Bending, they never cared enough to see how much he tried. Of course he enjoyed the family wealth a little too much but still. He was a proud prince all the same.

He turned to the guard, "For what, has mother come out of labour?" he queried in a voice laced with annoyance.

Ozai was known for his rather fiery temper and the guard did not wish to catch him in one of his moods. He rather liked his face unscarred and un-scorched mind you.

With an audible gulp, the guard composed himself, the prince was certainly not going to take kindly to what would follow. He just prayed to the spirits his wife would love him for his scars, if that even existed. "Y-Yes, but unfortunately, she did not make it." He closed both eye as he began counting the seconds, expecting to see a fireball heading directly for his face but it never came. Instead, what greeted him when he peered one eye open was a sight that shocked him. Ozai's eyes were wide in shock, and his lips appeared to be trembling.

Before the guard could say anymore a fireball roared past his face. The young prince grabbed his robe with a frustrated grunt and rushed to where his mother's chambers were. He was barefoot, the cold ground biting the underneath of his feet but he was of fire and smoke rose from where his feet landed. The guard remained behind, too frozen to make another move whilst still in the presence of the young prince.

His father always called him brash, lacking the necessary calm he required of an heir but he digressed but that was a moot point and he never voiced it. He would allow Father to come to whatever conclusion he had about him, but he will prove him room.

He arrived to the room, and he pulled open the door with a rough jerk of his wrist and ran inside, to where he came upon the sight of his father. His mother was nowhere in sight, the ruffled and disturbed red sheets he expected to find her empty. His eyes flew to his father and immediately questions flew from his lips, "Is it true? Is mother dead? Tell me!" The boy demanded with tears now worming down his face.

In normal consequences, the boy would never take such a tone with him, but this time Azulon was willing to let it go. "Yes, your mother has passed." He replied in a blank tone of voice, his eyes resting on Ozai's own desperate and denial filled ones. "Now act like a true prince and wipe those tears." He commanded, of course he had not meant to say that, and not so harshly but he could not bear to see his son in tears, not when he knew he wasn't very far from them either. It was his own way of assuring him and himself, of showing his support, but Ozai seemed to have not understood, if the widening of his eyes was anything to go by.

Azulon's eyes became solemn at that and he eased the stern expression on his aged repose. "Ozai, do you care not to see your brother?" He hoped to at least cheer him up with that news and instantly Ozai's eyes fell back into place and he now became hesitant, hesitant to see the brother whose birth took their caring mother. He knew not to disappoint his father and knew that what his father had asked had not been exactly a plead but a command that needed obeying, but he was wrong in that regard – Azulon was very much sincere, this turn.

Ozai moved closer to his father, standing at almost the same height as he did and hesitantly took the bundle from his father, gazing at it with a narrow-eyed stare. The infant's eyes peered open to stare at Ozai's, unravelling and presenting him with a shock of a sight. "That's…" he stammered in shock.

Azulon gave a firm nod of his own head, the corners of his lips twitching with the makings of a smile, "Yes, it was unbelievable for me to fathom as well. It is the mark or symbol of the fire spirits. They are beautiful aren't they?" the swelling pride within the fire lord was like an untamed wave, rising up to levels unprecedented.

Ozai could only nod dumbly as some kind of unfathomable emotion seeped into him, drawing a bitter feeling in the pit of his gut.

"That is the true mark of a fire bender. This child is not normal at all." He put a finger on his bearded chin as he struck a thoughtful and wise pose, "He has been touched by the gods is what they say." He finished with a rare smile, one even Ozai had never had the luxury to witness or have directed at him. He could feel how happy his father was, far happier than he had ever seen him.

Again it raised a tight knot within his inside but he quashed it as quickly as he could. This was his brother, his blood and he would have to welcome him, as Iroh had done unto him before. He smiled, he had never wished for a sibling but perhaps it could not be as bad as he fathomed it would be.

Perhaps, he would come to enjoy being an older brother…

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**There it is folks. This idea came to me a while ago. As I said, I'm South African and I needed to write a story in which I could locate myself and this one I'm able to do so. Believe it or not, my mother married into a royal family, so this story comes from that experience. I like my stories to have some kind of message within them, for people to feel related in some form or the other to it as well, thus this story.**

**Tell me what you liked; tell me what you didn't… **

**The Immortal out… **


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